New abortion law sparks debate locally

By KATIE HANSEN Daily News Staff

Published: Thursday, August 1, 2013 at 09:00 AM.

The House version was added to a motorcycle safety bill that was renamed, “Health and Safety Law Changes.” The Senate tacked the abortion measures onto an unrelated House measure to prohibit North Carolina judges from applying Islamic Sharia law or any other foreign law in certain cases.

Crist said he believes the entire issue has raised public consciousness and he thinks there will be a large showing of citizens at the next election to show their opposition.

The bill went through three rounds of being bounced from the Senate to the House of Representatives and back to the Senate before it reached McCrory’s desk Monday.

The law approved Monday also requires doctors to be in the room during the entire surgical abortion procedure and during the first dose of a medical abortion.

It forbids gender-selective abortions and allows doctors and nurses to refuse to participate in an abortion-related procedure on ethical or religious grounds. It prohibits public employees, and those who acquire healthcare under the federal healthcare law’s new public exchange, from accessing a plan with abortion coverage and allows
North Carolina
’s health department to make temporary new rules for the state’s abortion clinics as it sees fit.

Legislators and local advocates of the law counter that it would make the practice of abortion safer.

Bartolo Spano, a retired clinical psychologist, a third and fourth degree member of Council 3303 of the Knights of Columbus and a regular protestor at the Crist Clinic, said he supports the law.

N.C. Gov. Pat McCrory recently signed into law controversial abortion legislation, after weeks of debate throughout the state.

Local critics of the new law, such as Dr. Takey Crist, who established Jacksonville’s Crist Clinic for Women in 1973, say the law is a war on women’s rights cloaked with, “deception that it’s for the safety of women.”

Crist is an obstetrician, gynecologist and clinical assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of North Carolina Medical School and Eastern North Carolina School of Medicine.

When the N.C. Senate first proposed a law to change abortion regulations early in July, Crist said he had faith McCrory would not dabble in abortion legislation per promises he made in his campaigns.

“He’s come out as a liar,” Crist said Wednesday. “(The N.C. General Assembly and McCrory) have been playing games with women’s rights for the last two months.”

Governor McCrory defended signing the law, which in part says that abortion clinics must comply to similar standards as ambulatory surgical centers, in a written statement released Monday.

“I am pleased that this new legislation is focused on the health and safety of women in North Carolina,” he said in the statement. “These higher standards will result in safer conditions for North Carolina women. This law does not further limit access and those who contend it does are more interested in politics than the health and safety of our citizens.”

Crist said the law will restrict access to abortion within the state by shutting down abortion centers that do not meet standards of outpatient surgical centers and cannot afford to renovate to meet them.

“They’re going to destroy the Planned Parenthood clinics and the other clinics in the state that are not able to afford redoing the space and the volume that is required by surgical ambulatory clinics,” Crist said before the bill was signed into law.

Crist predicted an uptick in illegal abortions if clinics shut down.

“One thing that will always be true. If a woman is pregnant and she does not want the pregnancy, law or no law, she will find a way, whether legal or illegal, to terminate the pregnancy,” he said.

Crist said “it’s a shame it’s come to this” because he said North Carolina has always been known as a frontrunner for family planning and women’s health.

“They created this atmosphere as though all these things are important for the safety of the patient,” he said. “North Carolina has one of the safest rates on abortion statistics.”

But Crist said he expects women to “come up in arms” against the new law, one that he says was passed dishonestly.

The House version was added to a motorcycle safety bill that was renamed, “Health and Safety Law Changes.” The Senate tacked the abortion measures onto an unrelated House measure to prohibit North Carolina judges from applying Islamic Sharia law or any other foreign law in certain cases.

Crist said he believes the entire issue has raised public consciousness and he thinks there will be a large showing of citizens at the next election to show their opposition.

The bill went through three rounds of being bounced from the Senate to the House of Representatives and back to the Senate before it reached McCrory’s desk Monday.

The law approved Monday also requires doctors to be in the room during the entire surgical abortion procedure and during the first dose of a medical abortion.

It forbids gender-selective abortions and allows doctors and nurses to refuse to participate in an abortion-related procedure on ethical or religious grounds. It prohibits public employees, and those who acquire healthcare under the federal healthcare law’s new public exchange, from accessing a plan with abortion coverage and allows North Carolina’s health department to make temporary new rules for the state’s abortion clinics as it sees fit.

Legislators and local advocates of the law counter that it would make the practice of abortion safer.

Bartolo Spano, a retired clinical psychologist, a third and fourth degree member of Council 3303 of the Knights of Columbus and a regular protestor at the Crist Clinic, said he supports the law.

“I and several of my colleagues have written to Governor McCrory that we strongly support the bill,” Spano said.

Spano’s colleagues include fellow churchgoers and Knights of Columbus members.

He said he agrees with the legislation partly because it will offer safety for women wanting abortions.

“First of all, as you know it guarantees proper medical care, proper protection in a way,” he said. “The quality of care, this is in the best interest of the patient.”

Though Spano thinks the regulations are a step in the right direction, he said he wishes to see abortion done away with completely one day.

Spano said he believes opponents’ criticisms of the law — that it will effectively shut down clinics and restrict access for women — is “an over-exaggeration.”

“Crist Clinic offers a host of services,” he said. “Abortion is just one of them.”

Abortion standards have not been changed in the state since the mid 1990s, the Associated Press reported Monday.